Posted
by
timothy
on Sunday March 06, 2011 @07:02PM
from the where-the-tang-mines-will-be dept.

siliconeyes writes "Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organization have discovered a giant underground chamber on the moon, which they feel could be used as a base by astronauts on future manned missions to moon. An analysis by an instrument on Chandrayaan-1 revealed a 1.7-km long and 120-metre wide cave near the moon's equator that is in the Oceanus Procellarum area of the moon that could be a suitable 'base station' for future human missions."

There are certainly dust storms of a sort. Dust is moved by electrostatic forces as the sun rises and sets - all those charged particles coming out of the Sun, unimpeded, is like rubbing an amber rod with cat fur.

Moon dust should not be so quickly dismissed. It isn't like sand on Earth which has its edges blunted by wind and water erosion, because there is no such erosion on the moon. Moon dust is essentially microscopic shards of broken glass with very sharp edges. It's really nasty stuff, it sticks to everything like barbs. Managing moon dust will have to be a major practical consideration for a lunar colony.

This cave is near the equator, and as you know, the moon is dark two weeks every month. You'll need some pretty good power storage systems to keep a manned base running for that long on backup. The only place you would have (nearly) perpetual sunlight would be on the poles.

This cave is near the equator, and as you know, the moon is dark two weeks every month. You'll need some pretty good power storage systems to keep a manned base running for that long on backup. The only place you would have (nearly) perpetual sunlight would be on the poles.

I suggest giant fly wheels 1.5 miles in hight.... ahhh never-mind just send up a 9000mWh graphite based nukular reactor....

Heat engines would do the trick easily. Large temperature differences exist between the surface (hot/cold) and the bottom of the cave. You would need to change the direction of the piping twice a month.

The Earth would go bankrupt just on delivery of the liquid for this heat engine, unless it is molten glass or some other local material. But local materials are hard to use.

We can't set up any heavy machinery on the Moon or on other planets without some major discoveries in propulsion. Right now we are like ancient seafarers in a canoe crossing the Atlantic ocean. Can it be done? Yes, perhaps, if you really have to. Is it practical? Not

The part that we *see* is dark for half the month, but the moon as a whole is always half lit except for during a lunar eclipse. You could run a big power cable halfway around the moon and always have power;)

Well with the cost of he3 heading north you never know, never might be sometime sooner than you might have funkit. Plus you could always make anti-mater up there and ship it back home just like how the klingons use to...

From what we know of the regolith and presence of water on the Moon, one of the first commercially viable industries will be the construction and launching of Earth satellites, built with the ferro-concrete technology we perfected some 70 years ago. The Portland cement comes from cooking sorted and graded regolith in solar ovens, in vacuum; the process will have quite an interesting set of by products, including, I believe, oxygen. The re

Satellites don't die because they get hit by a micrometeorites, they die because they run out of fuel to keep them from combating atmospheric drag and general maneuvering. Moving more mass takes more energy for the same effect so heavy satellites will be a bitch. Not to mention the difficultly in properly de-orbiting them and the horror if one of them does hit something solid. Or hits anything period, like a micrometeorite. Congratulations, you've not create fifty new micrometeorites from the concrete chipp

"All this matters to NASA because, by 2018 or so, astronauts are returning to the Moon. Unlike Apollo astronauts, who never experienced lunar sunrise, the next explorers are going to establish a permanent outpost. They'll be there in the morning when the storm sweeps by.

The wall of dust, if it exists, might be diaphanous, invisible, harmless. Or it could be a real problem, clogging spacesuits, coating surfaces and causing hardware to overheat.

Which will it be? Says Stubbs, "we've still got a lot to learn about the Moon."

Ever hear of helium 3? Perhaps you are unaware that there is a severe shortage of it? Perhaps you are also unaware that it is used for lots and lots of stuff which make our modern world possible.Lastly, it seems that you are unaware that the moon contains shit loads of it.Seems to me like a practice and profitable reason.

Though there's a lot less dust up there than we once thought. There's a rather enjoyable Arthur C. Clark story "A Fall Of Moondust [wikipedia.org]", written pre-moon exploration, which describes ships faring through the stuff.

You can't tell the length of a chamber from a photograph of the surface. Its not at all clear that there is any enclosed space in this tube. It could have been that the un-collapsed section is in fact filled full of derbies. Until we can hit them with ground penetrating radar its probably guesswork.

If you're going to be outrageously pedantic, you should at least strive to be correct while you're at it.
== does not represent a query, it represents a comparisson, indicating "is equal to". A single = would mean "thing on left becomes thing on right".
Next, it's "rather than" - saying you'd rather empty out a chamber filled out with crap then construct a chamber from scratch is stupid - why would you construct one from scratch if you've already emptied one out? (hint: Then with an E means "do thing A.

It could have been that the un-collapsed section is in fact filled full of derbies.

That in and of itself is a great reason to go there. Just think: one of those derbies might be the legendary Kirward Derby. [wikipedia.org] If so, whoever wears it could easily figure out how to solve all the world's problems, including paying for the trip.

for some reason when i read this the phrase "metal munching moon mice" popped into my head. apparently it's from a rocky and bullwinkle episode i must have seen a very long time ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal-Munching_Mice [wikipedia.org]

The one way trip time for a radio signal between the Earth to the Moon is about 1.3 seconds if I remember correctly.Hollywood never shows it, but then again they have people on radios from Mars in real time and that's something like a 20 minutes to a half hour one way.Just imagine calling home from Mars. You dial the number, then wait a half hour before it starts ringing on Earth so someone will pick it up, by the time you hear them saying "hello", about an hour has gone by. Not very reasonable.The 1.3 seconds to the Moon would drive most computer communication protocols nuts, especially since they won't know if the other end has even received a packet for a bit more than 2 and a half seconds. Someone out there has written an interplanetary protocol, but I don't believe it's actually been implemented for anything.As a side note, NASA uses their own custom stuff to talk to their probes. They even have to take into account doppler shift due to the relative speeds and trajectories of their probes and receivers. It can get really messy if you haven't planned for it.

All times will vary depending on the exact positions between the two bodies since they are orbiting the sun in different orbits, and if you want to communicate with something on the other side of the sun from you, you can't, at least not directly. To do that trick you have to send the signal to something else that can see both you and your intended recipient so they can relay it, which means a longer route and so a longer delay in any communications.

Sci-Fi is so much easier with Ansibles, Sub-space Radios, and other types of instant communications.

Sci-Fi's superluminal communication can actually be extrapolated from Quantum entanglement [wikipedia.org], if you're so inclined. Not saying that's a guaranteed solution, but you can imagine it happening.

Unfortunately, that isn't how entanglement works - it sure seems like it should be able to send information faster than light, but every hypothetical experiment that has been devised still gets curtailed by a light speed constraint.

Since the moon isn't covered by any legal jurisdiction, it would be a perfect place to set up a data haven. In fact, I believe one company already has plans to set up a lunar facility.

The moon's not covered by any legal jurisdiction, because at the moment, it doesn't really need to be. Once any human activity starts, the lawyers will crawl out of the woodwork, and treaties, contracts and agreements will begin to stack up nicely. Pretty much as it does in International Marine Law.

This cace is "near the moon's equator". The only places where we could find water are on the poles.

It's not that hard to move the water, especially in a low-g environment such as the moon. A pipeline from the pole to the equator would be about 1,700 miles, definitely possible considering that the longest pipeline on Earth [wikipedia.org] is around 2,500 miles.

You could also have largely autonomous vehicles which shuttle back and forth from both sites on a ballistic trajectory, it would take a relatively low amount of energy. Hell, I'd use something like a space fountain [wikipedia.org] or launch loop [wikipedia.org] because most of the energy of launch could be re-captured when the payload lands.

Natural lava tubes this size are a great find for many reasons:

living quarters will need considerable shielding from:

high-energy particles

pressure differences

temperature swings

micro-meteor impacts

the best first-line of shielding will be the moon's regolith, it's dense and locally-available

excavation takes time and that means a lot of money supporting the crew and equipment doing the digging

you'll have to shield the crew during excavation, which means you need to bring shielding with you

A large, stable lava tube greatly simplifies the entire process and saves a lot of time and money.

I don't think the pipeline would work. 1700 miles is easy on earth, but a much tougher construction project in hard vacuum. Can you imagine welding though spacesuit gloves? Not to mention it'd be terribly expensive to lift 1700 miles of pipe. Even then you'll have to expend a lot of energy heating it so the water doesn't freeze.

I'd think it'd be easier to dig another cave in a more convenient location.

On the other hand, the words "Space fountain" gave me an awesome idea before I looked up what it really is. Here's what I thought: collect water at the poles, pressurize it, and squirt it through a nozzle on a ballistic trajectory toward the moon base. Lay out tarps all around the base. The water will freeze in flight and fall on the tarps. When you need more water, reel the tarps in and collect the ice.

You could improve the aim by making a specialized nozzle. After initially launching the drops, have them go down a long barrel, perhaps tens of meters long, with some kind of noncontacting guidance mechanism inside. Induction coils? Little microdroplet sprayers? It'd be like aiming the electron beam down a CRT. Depending how tight you can dial in the convergence, you might be able to make due with a giant funnel on the receiving end.

Keep in mind you don't need to bring back a lot of water. You only need enough to replenish what gets lost. Pipelines are great for big volume, but for these small amounts, I'd bet the "moon fountain" might cut it.

Or just send out an RC moon buggy to pick up a few barrels from time to time.

In some ways it would be harder (due to the lack of local water), but in other ways much easier. The equatorial region can be reached from any orbit, while the poles require a polar orbit. Anything coming from Earth is going to have an easier time getting into low-inclination orbits, making movement back and forth more feasible for an equatorial base.

As far as what they'd do, the earliest stages would mostly involve simply setting up the base and keeping it running. After that you can focus on science an

Unless this is a deep, deep chamber the possibility of it collapsing when pressurized precludes just plugging up holes and using it.

The plan for this kind of construction usually involves shoring and lining the tube to be sure that there are no weak points or leaks. You'd also build structures inside the tube that are sealable and have redundant safety measures.

A lava tube would would make an excellent first-line of protection but it wouldn't be the only one. It would save a lot of time and money in the construction of a lunar settlement.

I'm surprised they allowed their mass-media mind-control network to leak the fact that there are tunnels on the Moon. Perhaps they accidentally drank some of their own fluoridated water? Either way, the Annunaki will be pissed.

From the article, "the lava tubes offer a dust-free environment and adapting them for human use requires minimal construction. "

I think someone's been drinking too much of the strong coffee if they can conclude anything about dust levels in a lunar cave without having put any telemetry into the hole, or think that adapting any natural structure on the moon requires minimal construction without having actually imaged the fine-scale condition of the rock.

The original paper is published in an open access journal [ias.ac.in] and the authors have covered the issues you mention.
Their citations 2-8 are other papers which discuss the possibility of using caves like this for human habitation. The paper also includes spectroscopic studies of the composition of the roof -- seems like lots of Iron and Titanium.This seems to indicate Basalts (volcanic) according to the paper.If it withstood a lava flow, presumably it will survive an atmospheric re-pressurisation/ bunch of construction crews drilling away.

It's not up to Swiss Cheese status, but they keep finding more and more gigantic holes, this is just the latest and currently the one with the largest estimated size. Let's see what they find next year...

We've already landed on the Moon, evidently about 30 years before you were born. Your feeble efforts at dreaming don't have to limit my imagination, especially when you're unable to imagine Moon colonies that have been imagined for you for generations. Now put the fail pipe down and back away from the keyboard. Take a walk or something.